Texas State Capitol
So I walked about 2 miles today, the last mile and a half of which had no Gatorade or water. I am qualified to join MENSA but I should be getting a rescinding of that in the mail in a few days. I could barely walk half a mile total without wanting to die a few days ago in Chicago and now I'm willingly gonna have heatstroke. Once again, I am a genius.
My goal today was to hike the mile to the UT Austin campus and look around there. I wanted to go to the LBJ library and count the number of pictures of beagles being held up by the ears, but since it'd be an extra .9 miles to the library once I got up there, I decided to settle for the Texas Capitol building since that's about a five minute walk from me.
Well, it's giant and pink or coral or something but it's actually like half museum inside. You can go see a Texas House of Representatives meeting if you want (I'd rather stick a fork in my eye) or just read all the stuff on the walls or take a tour. I decided to wing it myself and spent most of my time in the Visitors' Center, which has more exhibits and such. You can try on a replica Alamo outfit and take a picture on a fake horseback.
I don't remember much else of what happened that day, except it wasn't remarkable. The thing about Austin to me so far is that it seems like it'd be awesome to live in, but not too great to visit. Like, there are a lot of restaurants around and Sixth St is probably fun for a visit (it is), but it's harder to find things to do than in somewhere like LA since you have to be vaguely aware and look for stuff online. Nothing's going to fall into your lap except Sixth St since I can walk outside and literally look at it.
Thinking about it, I think that was the day I walked almost a mile to the Whole Foods since I heard the one here was the mothership. I still like the one in Union Square better in terms of food available but the one here has a taco area so it's a toss up. There are cooking classes and a bunch of other stuff here.
It ends up being not awful though since August here is so hot that you can't really go outside and do much. That night, finally, since it was a Friday, pretty much everyone on my floor of the hostel came out to the common room/nommons and hung out for awhile before we went to both east and west Sixth St's, taking a pedicab to get from one to the other.
East Sixth is basically a drunken 21 year old's ideal of a street. It's closed to traffic at night, has as many bars as probably all of High St from the Arena District through campus at OSU within 3 blocks and has a LOT of pizza everywhere. I am very okay with this.
We got separated from the Australian girls we were with because they were drunk and belligerent and just disappeared. Keep that in mind for Day 5, it becomes important. The rest of us, as in 2 Americans from NYC, me from Jerz and 4 Brits ended up on West Sixth via pedicab and found a giant ranch themed bar that's bigger than any single one in Columbus. It was just two giant dance floors. I found a guy that looked like Lil Wayne. Maybe it was Lil Wayne who knows.
I learned new British slang that night as George, the very drunk 22 year old, kept calling the girls who loved his accents his "birds." Ok. We also found an Ambrose Burnside themed bar. I don't know why that exists, but it was my favorite thing we found.
On Day 5, I had no idea what to do so I decided I'd go see the South Congress shops. I made it across the (other) Colorado River before I wanted to die and walked back and visited shops like Toy Joy and Austin City Limits' store (I think) instead. I wanted to buy everything at Toy Joy, but that's just because I'm a child. I'll probably get something at ACL before I go just to get something Austin-y.
I went to the Paramount Theater since I wanted to see something in a 100 year old theater and got to see The Breakfast Club. I don't know why they were showing it but I sure as hell wasn't going to argue. Plus it's 100 degrees out and any respite from that in a theater is welcome. Problems were two fold, though. First, the movies aren't actually shown in the pretty 100 year old place; they're at the Stateside Theater next door. Secondly, it took them until five minutes before showtime to even let us in the theater. It was 100 outside and they wouldn't even let us in the door. Oh and it said on the tickets to make sure you're there 30 minutes early to make sure you get your tickets. They seem to have corrected this with the next showing, though, as people were waiting inside the theater when we came out.
And then that night, the only people who were still around and wanted to do anything were me, an Australian bro, and the three constantly drunk Australian girls. And a girl with hairy armpits too. Don't wear a tank top if you're gonna not shave your pits, Jesus Christ. Anyway, after I corralled the two Kristens from my room to come too, we all went downstairs. The 3 Australian girls got so shithoused that they weren't allowed in the bar downstairs. Normal people would just say ok and go to one of the literal hundred bars a block away. They decided to yell at the bouncer and guy working the desk, who happened to also work for the hostel.
The hostel people said if they didn't stop antagonizing them, they were getting kicked out of the hostel. Again, normal people would go somewhere else. Being the perfect person I am, I got left there to try to get them to leave. They would not. The two Kristens got out of dodge (they were the smart ones), while I tried to help 3 drunk girls not end up homeless. I failed. After they dragged me a mile to Rainey Street, a mile away, I got fed up and went home because they were way too drunk and I was bored. So I was one of the first ones back.
Then this morning, when I woke up, Fort Worth Kristen told me that the Australians got kicked out because they came back at 3 am and decided to antagonize the people still. I don't know if they're stupid, deranged or both, but they got escorted by cops out of the building. I'm assuming they're at a Motel 6 or something now but who knows.
I should've gone with the teacher and her boy who were here or the two Kristens but nope I tried to be nice. At least it's funny in retrospect. After that today, pretty much everyone moved out of the room except me and one British guy. The teacher and her boy were just staying to get the hostel experience for a couple of days. She got yelled at on the street for having tacos and pizza at the same time. Then she was too drunk to walk at the same time. Fun.
So today, I went to see the Austin Graffiti Wall or whatever it's official name is. It's cool and people are putting new stuff on it right in front of you. Problem way, it's basically a death trap to climb and if you're not there with someone to make sure you're not gonna tumble down, it can be a hard climb. I gave up about halfway up and just took pictures from the bottom instead.
After that, I went to see Aliens at the Alamo Drafthouse pretty much just to see something there. It struck me as being pretty much exactly like Nitehawk in Brooklyn except they take forever to seat you for whatever reason. This seems to be a problem with Texas movie theaters. I don't know why.
And there doesn't seem to be too many people around today since it's a Sunday, so I'm probably going to bed early and finally going to wait in line for Barbecue tomorrow morning. I am very excited about this.
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